Unexpectedly finding a frog in your toilet once makes for an interesting, and perhaps amusing, story.

Unexpectedly finding a frog in your toilet again, indeed in a different toilet altogether, creates a rather disturbing and odd phobia in which you stare with great trepidation into the bowl each time you approach, carefully examining every nook and cranny. You then sit in fear, obsessively thinking that a frog is sneaking up on your rear end.

Sometimes people will ask you what you have learned lately. That's what I have learned this week.

Here are three recent, representative pieces of Maggie's artwork. I think these give a good representation of where she is developmentally with her academic learning. All three warm my heart for their own reasons. The first two are from pre-k during the past week. The third one I found lying around her playroom and I assume was made at home sometime recently.

1. This is a little stapled booklet. What mom wouldn't be moved by a book a child has made which is titled "Mom" as this one is? She explained to me that it's not about me, that's just the title. Also, the pictures inside are of some "bad guys," but no matter. Did I mention the title is "Mom"??

2. This fire truck is really cool. It was a result of a weeklong study of safety at pre-k, focusing on fire safety in particular. She was so proud to tell me, "I made it all by myself." Though I know from past experience that this does not necessarily mean that she actually had no help, I was still tickled by how proud she was, and I think it looks great. Too bad so much of the school artwork is done with construction paper, which has such a high acidity and tends to fade and deteriorate quicky over time. Thank God for modern technology which allows us to preserve this kind of thing.

3. Although her people look disturbingly like aliens, I am so proud as I see these funny little people littering the floor and tables all over our house. Her artwork during the past year has gone from complete "scribble scrabble" (as her 3-year-old class teachers taught her to disdainfully call it) to this recognizable work which includes actual key features of a human being, namely head, arms, legs, eyes, hair, and sometimes a mouth or ears. Around the time of her birthday I had her draw pictures on her thank you notes and she decided to draw a picture of each person. Those also included the people's "bottom" on the drawing. I think she meant their girl and boy parts. Ew on the anatomically correct drawings. But at least she is thinking about true-to-life detail. :o)

Here are 3 photos from Stone Mountain Park on 9/29/07, one showing Maggie's awesome writing skills (a million letter A's on the tub wall with bathtub crayons; also she has traced over the places where I wrote her name and Mike's), and one I love of Jack and me from 10/1/07. As I look at these pictures I think about this: Life is not perfect. Maggie needs a haircut, Jack has drool on his chin, my hair is all over my face, Jack looks sort of sad, and it doesn't matter at all. This is our real life, and it is beautiful.

Just a reminder that you can click to get the full size version of each. Some of the previews are a bit fuzzy.